The field of the invention relates in general to portable active protection systems for protecting assets, including soldiers, vehicles and structures from incoming missiles and rockets. More specifically, the invention relates to an active protection system which may be handheld.
Known in the art are variety of systems that are designed to intercept and destroy incoming missiles and rockets with a shotgun-like blast that ejects a plurality of particles towards the incoming object with the intent of jeopardizing its structure integrity to the point of rendering it useless or impairing its functionality. For example, a system known in the art by its commercial name “Trophy”, is a military system for active protection for vehicles, such as light and heavy armored fighting vehicles and vehicles in general. Developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aircraft Industries' Elta Group, the system intercepts and destroys incoming missiles and rockets with the abovementioned shotgun-like blast, as to supplement the fighting vehicles' armor.
The above prior art systems are designed to protect the vehicle that they are placed on, and as the systems are highly expensive, their deployment is limited to a select few only. Furthermore, as the system is deployed on vehicles that are already fitted with a variety of other systems such as radar, electro-optics, communication, and weapons systems, the deployment on the vehicles poses a great engineering challenge, as well as a tactical handicap, as the systems activation in battle conditions is limited by the need to avoid damage to all other existing systems.